James Kirkup is The Telegraph's Executive Editor (Politics). He was previously the Telegraph's Political Editor and has worked at Westminster since 2001.

The cowards who have given up the fight against the grey squirrel are this country's worst traitors

A rare shot of the grey squirrel as it truly is. (Original photo: Rex)

What’s the most English thing you can think of? What sums up the country, its eternal values and its modest glories? There are many possibilities, but few are better than cricket, especially village cricket: the lovely, lovely combination of sporting seriousness, self-deprecation, mixed weather, low-level intoxication, and cake.

Now imagine a morning where a plucky local XI turn up on the village green looking forward a nice day in the sun followed by a pail of scones and a half-gallon of mild.

The opening bats take their place at the wicket, and the visiting side arrive. Pretty soon, it’s obvious something is wrong. Because the other side aren’t in white. They’re in green, camouflage green. And they’re not carrying bats and balls but guns and grenades.

That English XI isn’t facing a cricket team. They’re up against a US Marine Corp platoon firing live ammunition. And it doesn’t take long to establish that even the very best forward defensive stroke is of scant use in deflecting 5.56 mm rounds in three-second bursts.

Of course, this wouldn’t happen. It’s not cricket. We have rules and laws to stop that sort of thing, don’t we?

Apparently not, at least as far as the countryside is concerned. Not as far as this Government is concerned.

I’m talking about squirrels, and you should be too.

For decades, this country has been at war. Our native red squirrels have been under attack, regular, sustained and violent attack, from aggressive and unwelcome foreign invaders: grey squirrels.

Now, you may think grey squirrels are cute, or fluffy, or harmless. If you do, you are not just an idiot but a traitor to your country.

Grey squirrels are filthy, rutting brutes devoid of charm or sophistication. When they’re not mindlessly destroying stuff in gardens, they are mating with squalid enthusiasm, spewing out generation after generation of their nasty grey pups, who then grow up to out-eat and out-breed their refined red cousins, which show a much more proper and decent sense of restraint about matters carnal.

And not content with the evolutionary advantage they derive from abandoning themselves to lust, the grey horrors use biological weaponry too: squirrel pox. Greys carry it without harm, but it kills reds stone dead.

For years, the greys have been spreading across England, spreading like some vile infection through the green arteries of this sceptred isle. The reds, starved and poisoned by the incomers, have been in retreat, falling back to their last redoubts. In recent years, our brave boys have been making their final stand in blessed Northumberland. I grew up in that war-torn land, my childhood spend in fear and trepidation as each spring arrived, bringing with it reports that the frontline was coming ever closer, the invaders advancing relentlessly, mercilessly, ruthlessly towards the last bastion, Kielder Forest.

That advance did not come cheaply, though. England’s true defenders sold each foot of woodland dearly. Thousands of greys fell; more than 20,000 were culled in defence of Kielder. Some of the country’s finest minds also set to work devising novel defences against the advancing horde: OK, the attempt to force contraceptives on the greys was a bit optimistic, but in a battle for national survival, you try even the most desperate schemes, in the forlorn hope that the boldest measures really are the safest.

I think most people fighting this war, either in body or in spirit, knew it was a lost cause: you can’t buck biology, and the grey brutes have evolution on their side. But that doesn’t mean the fight was not worth having: would you rather die fighting, or on your knees?

That doesn’t mean the war is over, of course. True believers will go on fighting, prosecuting the guerrilla, as partisans have always done when their leaders failed to match their resolve. But they will fight without official support: Her Majesty’s Government will not fight for Her Majesty’s squirrels.

The first duty of Government is defence of the realm, squirrels included. This administration has abandoned that duty. Oliver Heald and his friends have cravenly betrayed the country they swore to serve. There can be no equivocation about the rewards this treachery demands: a white feather, then the rope.